By Isabela Abreu, The Open Group
Under an autumn Brazilian sky, The Open Group held its first regional event in São Paulo, Brazil, and it turned out to be a great success. More than 150 people attended the conference – including Open Group platinum members (CapGemini, HP, IBM and Oracle), the Brazil chapter of the Association of Enterprise Architecture (AEA), and Brazilian organizations (Daryus, Sensedia) – displaying a robust interest for Enterprise Architecture (EA) within the world’s sixth largest economy. The Open Group also introduced its mission, vision and values to the marketplace – a working model not very familiar to the Brazilian environment.
After the 10 hour, one-day event, I’m pleased to say that The Open Group’s first formal introduction to Brazil was well received, and the organization’s mission was immediately understood!
Introduction to Brazil
The event started with a brief introduction of The Open Group by myself, Isabela Abreu, Open Group country manager of Brazil, and was followed by an impressive presentation by Allen Brown, CEO of The Open Group, on how enterprise architects hold the power to change an organization’s future, and stay ahead of competitors, by using open standards that drive business transformation.
The conference aimed to provide an overview of trending topics, such as business transformation, EA, TOGAF®, Cloud Computing, SOA and Information Security. The presentations focused on case studies, including one by Marcelo Sávio of IBM that showed how the organization has evolved through the use of EA Governance; and one by Roberto Soria of Oracle that provided an introduction to SOA Governance.
Enterprise Architecture
Moving on to architecture, Roberto Severo, president of the AEA in Brazil, pointed out why architects must join the association to transform the Brazil EA community into a strong and ethical tool for transforming EA. He also demonstrated how to align tactical decisions to strategic objectives using Cloud Computing. Then Cecilio Fraguas of CPM Braxis CapGemini provided an introduction to TOGAF®; and Courtnay Guimarães of Instisys comically evinced that although it is sometimes difficult to apply, EA is a competitive tool for investment banks
Security
On the security front, Rodrigo Antão of Apura showed the audience that our enemies know us, but we don’t know them, in a larger discussion about counter-intelligence and cybersecurity; he indicated that architects are wrong when tend to believe EA has nothing to do with Information Security. In his session titled, “OSIMM: How to Measure Success with SOA and Design the Roadmap,” Luís Moraes of Sensedia provided a good overview for architects and explained how to measure success with SOA and design roadmaps with OSIMM – a maturity model of integration services soon to become an ISO standard, based on SOA and developed by The Open Group. Finally, Alberto Favero of Ernst & Young presented the findings of the Ernst & Young 2011 Global Information Security Survey, closing the event.
Aside from the competitive raffle, the real highlight of the event happened at lunch when I noticed the networking between conference attendees. I can testify that the Brazilian EA community actively ideas, in the spirit of The Open Group!
By the end of the day, everybody returned home with new ideas and new friends. I received many inquiries on how to keep the community engaged after the conference, and I promise to keep activities up and running here, in Brazil.
Stay tuned, as we plan sending on a survey to conference attendees, as well the link to all of the presentations. Thanks to everyone who made the conference a great success!
Isabela Abreu is The Open Group country manager for Brazil. She is a member of AEA Brazil and has participated in the translation of the glossary of TOGAF® 9.1, ISO/IEC 20000:1 and ISO/IEC 20000:5 and ITIL V3 to Portuguese. Abreu has worked for itSMF Brazil, EXIN Brazil – Examination Institute for Information Science, and PATH ITTS Consultancy, and is a graduate of São Paulo University.
